Today, individuals and organizations increasingly rely on virtualization technologies to simplify management of their IT infrastructures. Typical virtualization technologies may enable multiple virtual servers to concurrently run on the same physical host, which may reduce the number of physical computing devices that must be managed and maintained. Some virtualization technologies may also enable virtual resources from one or more physical devices to be partitioned into one or more virtual data centers and/or may enable one or more virtual machines to be configured and/or managed within a virtual data center as part of a single distributed application, which may reduce the complexity of managing certain applications (e.g., multi-tiered applications).
Unfortunately, conventional techniques for backing up and restoring distributed applications within virtual data centers may present unwanted limitations. For example in the event that a distributed application fails while running within a virtual data center, a typical method for restoring the distributed application to the virtual data center may include transferring a backup of each virtual machine that is part of the distributed application from a backup storage system to a production datastore accessible to the virtual data center before the distributed application can be brought online, which may take a considerable amount of time and as a result may negatively impact recovery time objectives. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies a need for additional and improved systems and methods for restoring distributed applications within virtual data centers.